Chocolates made in Nicaragua

[dropcap]A [/dropcap]few weeks ago, Seventy% was invited to Nicaragua to give two Slow Chocolate workshops to a group of farmers, producers and other representatives from the cacao world. We had the great pleasure in meeting Carlos Mann, founder of Momotombo Chocolate and one of the most promising artisan chocolate makers in Central America.

Carlos Mann at the Momotombo factory store

“Our first recipe was a simple roasted peanut chocolate. And, the first one that made me proud was our cashew and aged rum variety,” says Carlos Mann passionately, admitting that making chocolate had not been his ambition in the first place. So, how did his journey begin?

Fresh mango

It started years ago, during his days in California. As a former illustrator, who spent some time in San Francisco working at a video game studio, he quickly became a foodie just by living in the Mission District, searching every corner of the neighbourhood for tasty bites.

The Mission is the old Mexican quarter of the city where almost every Latin American country has some culinary representation. Mexican, Brazilian, Cuban, Peruvian, Salvadorian, Argentinean food and even Nicaraguan food is available and that was something that strongly inspired Carlos. ‘I started cooking some of the food I tasted in the streets and restaurants all around the city. For the first time in my life, I also went to museums, taking in the so-called fine art of the world and getting tuned in to the underground art scene of San Francisco,” he explains.

Food and art. The perfect combination Carlos needed in order to evolve and found Momotombo Chocolates some years later.

The flavours of Nicaraguan food

Making traditional chocolate drinks

The food and smell of his childhood are still fresh in his mind. He recalls what a superb cook his grandmother was and what a sugar freak he was. “I had seven cavities by the time I was six. All from stealing and eating her cakes, pies and sweets.”

However, Carlos tells us a story that could be seen as a premonition of Momotombo Chocolate.

In the 1920’s, his great grandfather arrived from Italy to open the first candy and chocolate factory in Nicaragua. “In a typical Nicaraguan drama, he fathered my grandfather Octavio out of wedlock with a native woman. He did not recognise him formally as his son. So our family did not carry on a relationship with him or his other children. I don’t know much about him, but it’s my understanding that none of his legitimate children had interest in the trade and that his candy business eventually shut down,” he says.

Momotombo fresh chocolates

After years living in California and spending a year in India, Carlos decided to go back to Nicaragua. Perhaps, the craving for his grandmother’s dishes and the link to his Italian ancestry were too intrinsically linked. Intuitively, he needed to continue his culinary journey back in his native country.

“I started having extremely vivid dreams of cacao”

Carlos with Martin Christy - two fellow cacao worshipers attached to a tree

“I think chocolate began to work its effect on me. In late 2004, I was bombarded by images of cacao. Every book I looked at seemed to have references of cacao. Traveling around Nicaragua I came across artisan chocolates that amazed me. I started having extremely vivid dreams of cacao.

I went to the market, bought myself a Clay Comal (for toasting cacao) and ten pounds of unfermented market cacao. I roasted it and started eating cacao.”

Carlos started writing down many recipes that he wanted to try. With the help of his friend Sonia, he began in earnest.

Evolution from fresh to refined chocolate

His recipes were coming along nicely and he now had some guidelines for an original recipe. It required minimal processing and could be produced in any farm or home in Nicaragua with locally available technology. It had to be fresh and un-tempered. And finally, Carlos needed to use natural local ingredients for flavouring: fruits, nuts, spices, herbs, seeds and flowers.

He would go to the market and stand in line with all the ladies waiting to hire the corn mill to make dough for “tortillas”. When his turn came, he and Sonia washed the mill before running his cacao through it. “That is how we got our cacao liquor for the first 18 months we made chocolate,” he explains.

Nicaraguan cacao has delicate hazelnut, tobacco, rum and coffee notes… All our recipes had to be designed to tame that wild flavour

At that time, he stubbornly decided that if he couldn’t figure out how to make good chocolate with the unfermented cacao from the market, he wouldn’t even bother trying to get hold of -fermented cacao. So for the first year and half, he only made chocolate with unfermented cacao. “I just didn’t worry about it. All our recipes had to be designed to tame that wild flavour.”

After a couple months, he made a chocolate that fit the image of what he had in mind. They called it fresh chocolate. “It is essentially an un-tempered dark milk chocolate. It is full of moisture and so mixes well with fresh ingredients such as fruits,” he adds.

About three years ago, the Nicaragua government recognized it as a new form of chocolate by including it in the national food codex as “Fresh Chocolate” (Chocolate Fresco).

“The flavour of our chocolate bars really change constantly all year round. We produce micro batches and we produce varieties on a whim or according to the seasons. We simply buy what’s interesting or seems appropriate at the time. Sometimes we make bars that are fruity, sometimes nutty, sometimes something else. It’s just like buying good ingredients for a great meal,” explains Carlos.

Nicaraguan cacao has delicate hazelnut, tobacco, rum and coffee notes. Carlos buys directly from farms that have a high overall level of criollo flavours in their cacao as well as from some than have more acidic fruity flavours derived from wilder varietals.

I want to see my country harness the power of cacao to transform itself into a nation of chocolate makers and expert cacao cultivators

In 2006, he founded Momotombo Chocolate. Its name comes from the volcano that stands on the shore of Lake Managua. Thirteen women work at the chocolate factory that has become an icon of artisan chocolatiers in Nicaragua. Momotombo has three shops in Managua and periodically ships its truffles to Palo Alto and Brooklyn.

Most of Momotombo's team are women

Carlos explains that even though it is a challenge making chocolate in Managua, due to the tropical heat, a limited supply of chocolate equipment and petty corruption, it is still incredibly interesting and exciting making chocolate in Nicaragua. “The ingredients available here are any chef’s dream!”

And what is your dream?

I want to bring back the old, almost-forgotten recipes and techniques of cacao transformation and production used in Nicaragua.

And I want to see my country harness the power of cacao to transform itself into a nation of chocolate makers and expert cacao cultivators. Chocolate is a fitting, proper means of reversing poverty.

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About author

Susana Cárdenas Overstall is a freelance journalist who left behind the tropics of Ecuador for misty London where she has been living for the last six years. Deep inside, she misses the sound of the Pacific Ocean and walking among the cacao trees at her father’s farm in the province of Manabí. Her first encounter with fine cacao began at the age of 10, when her father taught her how to select and roast Arriba Nacional cacao beans in order to make homemade chocolate.

Before entering the world of cacao, Susana came from a communications background and is a frequent contributor to Latin American and Spanish publications.

5 Comments

Maricel Presilla June 18, 2012

Good job Susana. How wonderful to read a story about new beginnings in a country with such an old cacao tradition as Nicaragua. I have a few of Carlos’s truffles at home and I am enjoying them very much. Bravo Carlos and Nicaragua.

Scott Tucker July 10, 2012

Hello would you mind stating which blog platform you’re using? I’m planning to start my own blog in the near future but I’m having a tough time selecting between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design and style seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique. P.S Sorry for being off-topic but I had to ask!

This is WordPress using a custom theme from Industrial Themes, which we in turn have further customised. We’d strongly recommend WordPress, but then we would as we’ve been using it here for about 7 years.

Liz Tynes August 15, 2012

I visited Carlos in 2005 when he was just starting in his home kitchen. My friend and I filmed him making his chocolate – so delicious. Yay Carlos!

Eve September 27, 2013

Where can input chase Momotombo dark chocolate with coco nibs in the Bay Area? I live in Napa, CA.